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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Eagleton, why is Hans-Georg Gadamer not concerned about bringing our cultural preconceptions to a literary work?
(a) Because unlike the literary work, the come from tradition.
(b) Because like the literary work, they come from tradition.
(c) Because unlike the literary work, they come from modernity.
(d) Because like the literary work, they come from modernity.

2. The distinction between fact and fiction in defining literature is what?
(a) Complicated.
(b) Difficult.
(c) Important.
(d) Questionable.

3. According to Eagleton, the Russian formalist shifted their attention to the "material reality" of what?
(a) The fiction.
(b) The critic.
(c) The facts.
(d) The text.

4. For Eagleton, how did the romantics usher a "forestalling of reasoned critical enquiry"?
(a) Because the image was seen as material reality that you saw immediately.
(b) Because the symbol was regarded as an absolute spiritual truth that you either saw or didn't see.
(c) Because the text was regarded as a reflection of society that you either saw or didn't see.
(d) Because the word was seen as a refleciton of religious truths that you either saw or didn't see.

5. What genre of writing does Eagleton provide that is an example of writing that is NOT considered to be literature?
(a) Romance.
(b) Comics.
(c) Science fiction.
(d) Young Adult.

6. According to Eagleton, the literary work in Romantic society is seen as a ________ that is in contrast to the "fragmented individualism" of capitalist society?
(a) Mysterious organic unity.
(b) Imperious inorganic unity.
(c) Imperious mechanical unity.
(d) Mysterious inorganic unity.

7. What kind of analysis is phenomenology, according to Eagleton?
(a) Discursive and non-evaluative.
(b) Critical and discursive.
(c) Uncritical and non-evaluative.
(d) Uncritical and discursive.

8. How far has the "theoretical revolution" spread according to Eagleton?
(a) To the outer circle of critics and readers.
(b) Not beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.
(c) Within the inner circle of critics and readers.
(d) Far beyond the circle of specialists and enthusiasts.

9. According to Eagleton, why is E.D. Hirsch able to maintain his view that literary meaning is absolute and resistant to historical change?
(a) Because meaning is viewed as pre-linguistic.
(b) Because meaning is viewed as pre-historic.
(c) Because meaning is viewed as pre-modern.
(d) Because meaning is viewed as pre-arranged.

10. What is the name of the American hermeneuticist E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s famous 1967 book?
(a) "Meaning or Method."
(b) "Validity in Interpretation."
(c) "Truth and Fact."
(d) "Being and Time."

11. Why is the example Eagleton gives of the sign in the London Underground system that "dogs must be carried on the escalator" a case of estrangement?
(a) Because of the ambiguities inherent in the statement, which raises questions about its meaning.
(b) Because the directive is unambigious and therefore inherently meaningful.
(c) Because the language is prosaic and straightforward.
(d) Because the statement is a directive where people who do not follow are estranged from society.

12. Eagleton provides the analogy of finding a "scrap of writing from a long-vanished civilization" to make what point about deciphering its meaning?
(a) That we would be able to see that poetry didn't exist by looking at its language.
(b) That we would be able to tell that it was a piece of poetry regardless of access to its language.
(c) That we would be able to learn that it was a piece of poetry by looking at the language.
(d) That we would not know whether it was a piece of poetry or ordinary language.

13. According to Eagleton, "in the terminology of reception theory, the reader _________ the literary work, which is in itself no more than a chain of organized black marks on a page."
(a) Rationalizes.
(b) Sanitizes.
(c) Concretizes.
(d) Terrorizes.

14. According to Eagleton, "theory was a way of _______ literary works from the ________of civilised sensibility'"
(a) Excluding; oppression.
(b) Dismissing; idea.
(c) Emancipating; stranglehold.
(d) Studying; truth.

15. For E.D. Hirsch, the aim of "policing" an author's meaning is to what, according to Eagleton?
(a) Sell her/his "private property."
(b) Alter her/his "private property."
(c) Protect her/his "private property."
(d) Control her/his "private property."

Short Answer Questions

1. Eagleton argues that a literary work in Romantic society becomes what rather than rational and mechanical?

2. According to Eagleton, why did the Russian formalists NOT see a literary work as a vehicle for ideas, reflection of reality, or transcendental truth?

3. In the eighteenth-century, what was the whole body of writing in society considered, including philosophy, letters, history, poems, and essays?

4. According to Eagleton, what happens when literary theory becomes "turgidly unreadable"?

5. How do linguists describe the effect of language where "the texture, rhythm and resonance of words are in excess of their abstractable meaning."

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